Presently, the techniques for program element multiplexing and identification mainly include those of the Thomson Inc. For example, the Chinese Patent (grant publication No. CN 1222168C) and the Chinese Patent Publication No. CN 1725843C disclose a method for processing multiplexed signals having multiple programs and information related to the programs. The method includes the following steps: receiving a multiplexed signal and identifying component signals that have predetermined Signal Component Identification (SCID) from the multiplexed signal. The SCID has different values for different program elements in the multiplexed signals. The method further includes programming multiple programmable match filters using the identified SCID from the multiplexed signal, filtering the multiplexed signal using the programmable match filters to determine the generation of the SCID programmed into the multiple programmable match filters, and further processing the various components of the program using the SCID based on the match filters.
The methods described above can identify audio, video, or data programs from a multiplexed signal effectively. However, the method needs to program multiple match filters using the SCID identified from the multiplexed signal and then processing the various components of the program using the multiple match filters. Therefore, the method includes complex processing steps, and a receiving terminal cannot process missing component identification information or program identification after error has occurred due to transmission signal errors.